(not sure how to tag this so if thinking too much about death & what happens after you die makes you uncomfortable definitely skip this post)
so I'm thinking about this preacher evangelist from tlt. on the list of things that distinguish the demigod experience from regular mortals - I think it's wild that demigods know for certain that an afterlife in Hades exists and they can probably reasonably estimate where in that afterlife they'll end up while they're still alive
obviously mortals have certain religious beliefs about the afterlife that they believe to be as certain as the color of the sky but percy annabeth and nico have BEEN to the underworld. hazel has ALREADY met with the 3 judges of the underworld and knows what their evaluation of morality looks like. I think that's an understated aspect of being a demigod. mortals can choose what they believe in and choose what they think happens after death but demigods are essentially born into a religion without having a choice, born into a predetermined way of perceiving the world and born to an inevitable afterlife in elysium, asphodel, or punishment
another interesting aspect of this is the added pressure to be a hero. yes camp jupiter is the harsher demigod society but there's more textual evidence that camp half-blood is the more individualistic society, and that its campers are more preoccupied with attaining personal glory - just look at luke and his "where's the glory in repeating what others have done?" quote. more than a few demigods (namely annabeth, clarisse) are shown actively vying for quests in which prove themselves as heroes. I'm not saying that they're only like that because elysium is hanging over their heads, but you can't get into elysium without being deemed righteous and heroic. this means that if you don't want to end up in asphodel, which you know for certain exists, then you simply have to try and be a hero in your lifetime. because of this, and because of the fact that demigods tend to have a short lifespan (and that not everyone is going to have an epic, heroic "death" like 12 year old thalia), I think it might be an uncomfortable unspoken truth around camp that the random 14 year olds who don't return to camp one summer were probably killed in some unremarkable way, and the tragedy of their death continues after they die because they don't even get elysium, they died young without having enough time or opportunities to be heroes, so they just end up in asphodel where they lose their personhood and drift about in a field for the rest of all time
